Baby: Kind of crawls mostly and stands up almost at the end

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BABY poster 2015.jpg


This seems to be a visible trend with most first time directors. Their first film has the energy, freshness and all the years and desperations of waiting to reflect in their film, being captured so well. But, moment they start to dwell in their second film onwards, there are the gaffes and the visible compromises that shows. Neeraj Pandey is one among them. His A Wednesday was taut and classic to watch, but with Special 26 and now Baby he is gradually making way for the abyss and that is sad. Farah Khan, John Mathew Mathan, Dibakar Banerji (he somehow could manage for surviving a longer period of time).. are some of the examples who have fallen in this trap. Why is that the first film they make, is right at the top and then they start floundering?

Anyway, coming back to Baby. The film's first half drags and there are many a moments that dilute the sequence. Especially, the Akshay-and his wife angle, which is stretched and drab, Danny's workplace does not seem a a typical South Block office, looking more a Bangalore IT office, and many such loop holes through the movie. What could have been a good noire, kind of only picks up in the last one hour and that is unexpected. The troika of Kher, Danny and Akshay does the trick but of course the canvas of the film too, which is broad, transverse-ing multiple cities.

Barring Akshay and Kher we do not see any of the character evolving in the film. And this why I think A Wednesday scores so well. It was a fast (read extremely) paced thriller but the two protagonists had ample opportunity to grow in their respective roles, And that was also with the supporting actors and actresses too. Pity, we do not see that in Baby.

Music was ordinary and times too loud to underplay the moment. Sometimes just the background sound or even a silence is good enough to overplay on the moment.

In all Baby has it's moments but by that time it happens, too much has been lost and said. 2015, does not make a good start so far as Hindi film industry is concerned.       

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